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ARMONK, NY and MOUNT PROSPECT, IL
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29 Feb 2012:
IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced the Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM) is using IBM analytics to help its members and the wider medical community more effectively deliver care to critically ill patients around the globe. Working with IBM, SCCM is able to make relevant information for patient treatment more easily accessible to physicians, nurses and clinicians.

SCCM is a non-profit organization that connects 16,000 physicians, nurses, pharmacists and other clinicians in more than 100 countries to help address the needs of critical care patients, through education, research and advocacy. The organization is using IBM Web analytics to mine through information generated as a result of search activity related to clinical issues in intensive care units (ICUs) such as sedation, sepsis, and mechanical ventilation.

Using IBM's Web analytics technology in collaboration with IBM Business Partner, Riverpoint Solutions Group, the society can glean insight into the focus that is most relevant or of interest to a specific clinician and effectively deliver information and education options on clinical advances to that clinician in the future. Based on available resources and access to medical knowledge in any part of the world, the level of care provided to patients can vary widely. Online learning has made clinical knowledge available to those treating patients in the developing world.

For years, professional education in organized medicine typically meant live events. Today, SCCM is moving education forward in the form of virtual engagements via Learn ICU, a Web site that hosts all of the Society's educational activities, best-practice webinars, and case-based simulations. SCCM members have access to all necessary information without having to travel or even leave their hospitals.

SCCM makes all relevant medical information and educational resources available through this online collaborative information exchange. In doing so, SCCM is addressing disparities in the standards of care around the world by providing members access to the most up-to-date clinical knowledge and the ability to collaborate with colleagues regardless of where they are based.

For example, when healthcare providers see a critically ill patient and are uncertain what to do, they can turn immediately to Learn ICU on a computer or mobile device to discover more information on the subject, including the latest research, past history and case studies -- anything SCCM has produced, searchable by topic. Information can then be immediately applied to a patient's care.

Prior Learn ICU, the Society would disseminate information broadly to all of its members without a specific focus to their specialty or clinical interests. Now, the Society is able to identify strong relationships among an individual’s attendance at live training events, webinars, and online self-directed education and compare it to demographic information like certifications, geographic region, or years of experience. As a result, the Society can target the right information and courses to the right physicians, nurses or pharmacists to ensure each is getting the right information at the right time to more effectively help save lives.

Critical care is defined as multi-organ system dysfunction. in other words, one set of organs fails and then the next set fails rapidly and the next set fails rapidly. If you can't stop this cascading organ failure the patient will die. Being trained in a single organ specialty -- for example, cardiology or nephrology -- is not enough. Critical care physicians (known as “intensivists”) must look at the entire patient holistically to help prevent multiple organ failure and save the patient’s life.

“We train physicians, nurses, pharmacists and respiratory therapists around the world -- anyone who might work in the intensive care unit or might care for a critically ill patient,” said David Martin, CEO of the SCCM, which in 10 years has expanded its global presence in Europe and throughout Asia, Africa and South America and, last year alone, trained more than 9,000 medical professionals in its Fundamentals family of courses. “The needs of physicians are different from nurses and their needs are different from pharmacists. By tapping into IBM’s Smarter Commerce initiative we can better understand each professional's areas of interest and deliver the right information in their specialty that will help them provide better care for patients around the world."

The Learn ICU functions in a wide variety of environments with diverse Internet capabilities. IBM Web analytics allows SCCM to send targeted communications to direct a member to a specific content area on Learn ICU, based upon their medical specialty and geographic region. IBM web analytics technology lets organizations get more out of their web data by securing deep behavioral insights on individuals including who visited a web property and how they responded to online campaigns and social media efforts. As a result, businesses can operate more efficiently by taking action based on an enhanced picture of their customers and prospects.

"The enormous cost and the high mortality rates seen in ICUs puts more emphasis on the urgent need for new treatments and systems of care, implementation of new research findings and identification of priorities for critical care research," said Andy Monshaw, General Manager, IBM Midmarket Business. "This information sharing platform can serve critical care colleagues worldwide with education videos and a social networking feature bringing expertise to health care providers together from all over the globe."